OB-Xd is based on the Oberheim OB-X. It attempts to recreate its sound and behavior, but as the original was very limited in some important ways a number of things were added or altered to the original design.

The OB-Xd was designed to sound as good and as rich as the original. It implements micro random detuning which is a big part of that sound. However, it was not designed as a self-contained completely independent soft-synth. It needs to be contained within a VST framework where things like transposition, automation, layering, arpeggiation, etc., are available. Also, like many synths of the OB-X's generation, the OB-Xd has no internal effects so its sounds and textures can be greatly enhanced by the use of additional processing like chorus, reverb, delay, etc.

From the manual:

"Thanks to 2DaT who created this little marvel. But we would be remiss not to thank all the members of KVR who participated in the Obxd forum thread. While the heart and soul of its design and development is all 2DaT, much discussion and debate went into it's graphic layout and the implementation of some of its features."

"So thanks to all who participated in its creation and also to the various people who stepped up to create excellent free patches for the Obxd."

I'm not going to say it sounds exactly like the Oberheims it is emulating, but the spacey, metallic shimmer is there. It's rare for a basic subtractive synth to be able to set itself apart and sound different from others while still being useful.

My go-to for retrofuturistic spacey pads, it has a classic sci-fi sound. It doesn't require much post-processing - just a touch of the clearest reverb you have and scoop out a bit of low-mids and you're there.

The only drawback that it has is the unison-detune being limited to monophony, which is a shame because the unison sounds remarkable in pads.

Obxd sounds great, there are a ton of good patches and banks on KRV and the GUI is large enough to see and use. It's a very usable synth. I love the S&H. Thanks to the developer and all those that contributed patches.

This synthesizer is amazing; it's a very good, useful emulation of the OB8, from what I can tell, and it has the features I want an emulation of the Oberheim synths to have: clear, lush sounds, easy interface, unison, sample and hold.

The sound is incredible. It doesn't have a sub oscillator, but I haven't been able to tell if it really needs one; you can get the synth to grind low without much of a problem, especially with the unison mode.

There's not much that can be said about the user interface and features; it has a set of filters, the SEM's resonance and cutoff features that seem to be clear enough. (I don't have an actual SEM to compare against, nor am I really concerned about an exact match, personally; I just want the thing to sound good.)

All in all, a very worthwhile synthesizer; I use it with Cubase 7.6, 64-bit windows version, and it works very well for me.

What file do the presets go in for Linux using Ardour 5? When I drop down the preset it only gives me a long list of "default" I've strace-ed Ardour and can't figure out what file/dir OBxD is looking in for the presets. Frustrating.

In your folder "Documents" you have a folder named "discoDSP" and a subfolder named "OB-Xd".

The skins and the presets are all there.

If you install OB-Xd manually you MUST know that in order to allow the plugin to access the skins and the presets where it is aimed at find them. It is the reason why it is way much preferable to use the installer instead than install manually, because the installer copy these folders and files at the right place so that when you right-click on an empty room of the GUI you can see a little menu opening to let you choose the presets and the skins without any troubles.

You sir, are THE MAN. Thank you. My brain was hurting I was so frustrated. I didn't even notice the install.sh file until you pointed it out. Now, is the Skins file where the fxp files go and the Banks file where the fxb files go?

Yes. More precisely the folder "Skins" is the folder where you find the different skins (and also can create you own).

And the folder "Banks" is the folder where you will find the different banks (they have the extension FXB) and create your own (using your DAW) so that you will find them again in the menu. To create a bank, use the "Save as Bank" from your DAW (the command doesn't exist in OB-Xd itself). You don't need to add the extension ".fxb" because your DAW will add it itself. Save your bank in this folder named "Banks". Currently OB-Xd need to be refreshed to reflect the change made by the addition of the new bank. So, just reopen OB-Xd and to retrieve your new bank you can use the menu "Banks" embedded in OB-Xd.

The folder "Bank" is also the folder where you can save your own presets not included in a bank. To save a new preset, use the "Save as Program" from your DAW (the command doesn't exist in OB-Xd itself). You don't need to add the extension ".fxp" because your DAW will add it itself. Save your preset in this folder named "Banks". And again, currently OB-Xd need to be refreshed to reflect the change made by the addition of the new preset. So, just reopen OB-Xd and to retrieve your new preset you can use the menu "Banks" embedded in OB-Xd.

A personal tip to create my own banks of personal presets:

OB-Xd being closed, I open a File Explorer in the folder "Banks".

I duplicate the bank named "001 - Init Bank.fxb". To this new file I give the name "BlackWinny 001.fxb" (I increment the number each time I create a bank of course).

Now I open my DAW and I open OB-Xd.

I load my new bank named "BlackWinny 001.fxb" (or any other sequential number).

In that bank, I load the original preset that I want to replace by a personal preset.

I tweak the knobs to make a new patch.

Using my DAW I rename the preset by a new name ("My first personal preset" for example).

And I just resave the bank. That's all. That way I have made a new preset, I have named it... and the changes apply in the bank "BlackWinny 001.fxb" which was loaded at this moment.

Making this procedure from 5 to 8 for new (or modified) patch after new (or modified) patch I create that way my personal bank(s) and I don't bother with any fxp presets.

Would you have any idea why Ardour would Blacklist the Obdx64.so plugin ? I tried to install this on another computer, same OS (Al Linux 64-bit) and I can't get the Obxd64 plugin to load, it's being blacklisted.

There is no 'set' place to install the presets.... just install them in a folder of your choice (I put them in a folder called 'OBXD Patches' that gets backed up nightly so they don't get lost), then after loading an instance of OBXD in your DAW, go to the VST2 drop-down menu and choose "Load Bank..." or "Load Patch...". Navigate to the folder where you installed the patch banks or patches, choose the bank you want, and it will load. The next time you go to the "Load Bank..." menu, it will default to the last folder you opened. Remember to Unzip/extract all your banks.